Theatre
Philadelphia, Here I Come! (King's Head)
Alive to paradox
Christopher Edwards
This production is a revival of an early play by Brian Friel. Anyone who enjoyed Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa, Translations or Faith Healer will want to see this subtle and moving work. It was first seen in Lon- don in 1967 when it did not have a particu- larly successful run. Since that time Friel has established a considerable reputation as a modern chronicler of Irish fantasies and realities.
Several of his plays are set in a mythical small village he calls Ballybeg. Friel's char- acters — like Gar, the 25-year-old protago- nist in this piece — often seek to escape from stultifying provincial Irish life. Get- ting away from Ireland is part of the great theme of Irish literature — along with exile and the love/hate relationship with the English. But Friel is alive to the deep para- doxes in Irish nature. His portrait of his fellow-countrymen is so vivid in detail, so poetically alive to ambivalence and nuance of feeling, that the theme of escape becomes at the same time a forlorn cele- bration of what is being discarded. This, at least, is the case with this excellent play.
The year is 1964. Gar is leaving Ireland the next morning for a new life in Philadel- phia. The basic story is a simple one. Gar's beautiful young mother married his father, a much older man, and died immediately after childbirth. The father is a mean, cold, silent man. The love of Gar's life, a sena- tor's daughter called Kate, rejected him for a better educated man. All Gar has is the drudgery of work in his father's shop and drunken sprees with the boys. What is there to look forward to but a life of pover- ty, dependence and frustration? America — the land with no past but with plenty of opportunity — beckons.
The reasons for going seem overwhelm- ing. What Friel crafts for us is an inner debate within Gar himself which expresses both sides of his nature — the impulsive, dreaming side and the sceptical, analytical side. The character is split between two actors — Gar Public (played by Jonathan Arun) and, invisible to the outside world, Gar Private (Brendan Coyle). The inner Gar is, essentially, a sober-voiced debunker and narrator — he jokes, teases, chastises and explains Gar's, and others', motivation.
Get out of the land of the Aran sweater and the Irish Sweepstake, he cries. And when Gar Public's resolve to leave seems to be faltering Gar Private sings him 'Philadelphia Here I Come' to remind him of the fun and razzmattazz that await him. But the myth of America is also shredded when it suits him. Gar's first job will be in a hotel. A quick-fire sketch of his line of work — frantic nodding, smiling and 'Mon- sieur, Madame' — hint at the obsequious duties that lie ahead. Has Gar what it takes to become MD of General Motors in the land of the deep-freeze and colour TV? Gar Private enacts an imaginary job inter- view with a thrusting Yank employer that delicately exposes Gar's signal lack of ambition and drive to date. And when we see a flashback to the meeting with his Aunt Lizzie — who emigrated to America before the war and returns 'home' to per- suade him to join them — Gar Private rel- ishes the chance to pinpoint her vulgar sentimentality.
The encounter with Aunt Lizzie is important for other reasons too. The play- wright is particularly interested in Gar's preoccupation with the mother he never knew. Lizzie, who looks like her and who ought to be a source of revealing detail, appeals to Gar's fantasy of recovering the past. Typically, this brash woman starts to tell Gar a highly charged story about his mother's wedding day — only to be divert- ed by her own empty garrulity. It seems clear Gar will never find out what he needs to know about his mother, for Gar, like many other characters in the play, clings to a private memory that is self-serving, senti- mental and, of course, invaluable.
If you find the first act of this play a little static — the main exchanges are those between the two Gars — Acts II and III spring to life with the eruption of a host of minor characters. The visit of the Boys to take their leave is a brilliant realised scene that could almost have come out of a Joyce short story. These three tough-talking, sex- mad, boastful virgins are vividly alive and touching, while simultaneously exposing the utter barrenness of a good night out in Ballybeg. I have already mentioned the visit of Aunt Lizzie. Both scenes give a pic- ture of complete little worlds and show us the young playwright in total command of technique, feeling and character.
The other figures we meet are equally well drawn. Gar's schoolmaster, a vain drunkard whose life was ruined — or was it? — because of his love for Gar's mother. He could have been Gar's father. Canon O'Byrne, a bland cleric who calls round to play draughts with Gar's father. Madge, the housekeeper and Gar's surrogate mother. And, of course, Gar's father, played by Eamon Kelly. The chill and emptiness of this actor are comical and painful at the same time. Shuffling through most of the action, he suddenly gives us two remark- ably expressive scenes — one where we are deceived into thinking we are seeing a flood of emotion in his face as Gar tries to make him recall a happy moment in their past when they went fishing together and his father sang for joy; the other when he actually does express strong feeling about his son. The fact that both these powerfully suggestive scenes are occasioned by events that probably never happened is typical of Friel's tolerant grip on the ambiguities of Irish human nature. This is a wonderful production of a great play.
'Perhaps someone ought to tell him it takes two tc tango.'
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